


Fifty Words Unspoken

by Snegurochka



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-05
Updated: 2008-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:14:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snegurochka/pseuds/Snegurochka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> There had been other men like Bill, men who broke promises and made alliances and crept in and out of his bed, but Remus never regretted a single one of them, and he never regretted Bill.</i></p><p>3,500 words. R. DH-compliant, so, kind of a train wreck in the angst department. Mind the character death and adultery, too. February 2008.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifty Words Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 1sentence, which provides 50 prompts for which you may only write one sentence each. That will explain the odd format of this story. Despite the words and prompts and one-sentenceness of it, though, this is intended to be a complete, coherent story. I hope it is, at any rate; took me long enough to piece the damn thing together... ;) Thanks to islandsmoke for checking it over for me.

#33 – World   
It was funny, Remus always thought, how the world divided itself into those who know, and those who want to know, and damned if Bill wasn't one of those who just _knew_.

#12 – Temptation  
Bill wasn't his to want, that much was clear, not least because there was Egypt, and ten years in age, and women who would always come and go, but when Remus lost his job at Hogwarts and Bill landed on his crumbling doorstep, grinning and holding a pity-fuelled casserole from his mother, Remus blinked at the red hair and blue eyes and couldn't help but _want_.

#08 – Cold  
There was a park in central London, not a tourist place or anything terribly large or showy, just a quiet space with green and benches and the odd stone angel, but it was a place that calmed Remus when he was in need of calming, and it was a place he began to go more and more often as more and more casseroles piled up on his doorstep, because the way Bill looked at him every time he handed one over unnerved Remus down to his very core.

#48 – Unknown  
"You aren't the first to get chucked from a job, you know," Bill said to him with a laugh one night over beer and more casserole, punching him playfully on the arm and chatting about Egypt and the sort of work Remus might be able to do there, but Remus could only focus on the way his arm burned under Bill's touch, and the way Bill hadn't even any idea what he'd done.

#10 – Drink  
Warmed by beer and laughter and hours together slumped at the kitchen table, regaling each other with tales of ages past, Remus leaned in against his sober mind's better judgement and brushed his lips over Bill's, heating down to his toes at the pressure of Bill's mouth responding, but no sooner had hands moved up to smooth through that long hair than Bill pushed his chair back abruptly and wiped his hand over his mouth, mumbling apologies and stumbling to the door.

#11 – Midnight  
The rain poured off Bill's shoulders as he stood outside Remus's doorstep with a soggy cigarette clenched between two fingers, trying in vain to get one last drag off it as the night closed in around him, and Remus could only lean against the door frame and cross his arms over his chest, feigning nonchalance as he voiced the obvious: "You came back."

#30 – Body  
That first night was slow and hot, desire dripping down the walls and steam rising from their tangled bodies, and Remus tried to be careful, tried to treat Bill like glass lest his first time with a man send him running back to the door, but Bill kept pulling him down again, rutting against him and moaning into his neck, and by morning, it was all they could do to let go of each other at last, limbs collapsing in a heap and sleep overtaking them.

#41 – Wait  
It took time; Bill wasn't ready; but Remus could hardly tell him that he would never be ready, not for something like this, and so he took to drinking at night and looking for work during the day, and in between, he waited.

#22 – Journey  
"You don't want this," he said when Bill finally returned, leaning against the door frame and running an exasperated hand through his hair, but Bill just shook his head and pushed Remus inside, claiming his mouth and answering in one kiss that he _did_ want it, he wanted nothing _but_ this, and it didn't matter who he'd slept with before, he was starting something new now, something that began with Remus's mouth and Remus's body and Remus's low moans in the night.

#23 – Fire  
It would be cliché to comment on the red hair as the cause of it, but most nights Remus couldn't help it: it was too easy, too much like hot flames when Bill arched his back and let his mouth fall open, hips stilling and come coating both of them, the setting sun bathing the room in soft, fiery light as Remus basked in the sight and smell and feel of Bill's body igniting underneath him.

#17 – Promise  
"You can't say forever," whispered Remus, his mouth gliding over Bill's chest and stomach, "not when you don't really mean it," but that was the thing about Bill, the thing that got him every time: he thought he _did_ mean it, he thought promises could be made over and over again without consequence, but only Remus seemed to have the foresight – or the experience – to know that every one made would also, eventually, have to be broken.

#32 – Farewells  
Bill went back to Egypt late that summer, making excuses about work and curses and a particularly wretched lock on a tomb in the desert, and Remus pressed his lips together and nodded, not daring to lean in for a kiss, because he wasn't stupid; he knew when a straight man's fling was over.

#28 – Forgotten  
The problem, of course, was that Remus didn't have _flings_; his only options were to sleep alone, or to fall in love, and erasing the imprint of Bill from his skin was a bit more than he was capable of getting on with at the moment.

#15 – Silk  
It was just a piece of fabric, nothing terribly interesting in and of itself, but it was brown and smooth and had last been seen keeping Bill's long hair out of his face, so when Remus found it buried at the bottom of his empty bed one morning, he couldn't help but throw the damn thing in the bin and admit that he _missed_ Bill, more than he ever thought possible.

#37 – Lies  
"Didn't think about you at all," breathed Bill, his hands moving over Remus's chest as the suitcase dropped to his feet and the deep tan of the Egyptian sun crinkled the skin under his eyes.

#27 – Fall  
After that, it became real, for both of them: the choice had been made, all doubts cast aside, and they were left only with each other, ignoring the whispers of others and the sore that Remus knew continued to fester in the pit of Bill's stomach, telling him that it was wrong to want this.

#07 – Wings  
"More," he groaned against Bill's mouth, hips twisting and cock full and thick in Bill's hand, but what he really meant was _"Higher," _because it was flight, that was the only word for it, the things Bill did to him in the dead of night when no one was watching or judging or casting him disapproving looks, and at those moments when Bill's hand slid over his body _like that_, coaxing deep moans from his lips and exquisite pleasure from his body, he was purely, unequivocally, helplessly _airborne_.

#20 – Talent  
"It's all in the wrist, see," Bill said as he flicked his wand at the door of the training vault, murmuring an accompanying string of words under his breath, and Remus could see in the crease of his brow and the way his fingers gripped the wand that it wasn't nearly as easy as Bill's nonchalance would indicate, and if possible, _that _impressed him even more.

#03 – Memory  
There had been other men like Bill; men with flying motorcycles and leather jackets and whispers of loyalty against his skin; men with messy black hair and glasses and girlfriends they were never supposed to marry; men who broke promises and made alliances and crept in and out of his bed; but Remus never regretted a single one of them, and he never regretted Bill.

#06 – Hurricane  
There was a storm coming, Remus could feel it, but even that was an understatement; it would be bigger than any he'd ever weathered before, bigger than Godric's Hollow or Azkaban, a whirl of wind and rain that would leave him drenched and torn apart and devastated by the roadside, he knew it, because this time was different; this time he'd actually let himself fall in love, and it didn't matter if she would be French or Belgian or fucking Egyptian, _she was coming_, he knew it, and it was just a matter of time before he drowned.

#21 – Silence  
"Talk to me," begged Bill, his voice low and urgent, but Remus wasn't up for it, not now, not with the rose of early morning sunlight glowing through the curtains, the damp sheets still heavy against his body, and Bill's story about the girl from France still sliding from his ears down to his gut and congealing in a hot, stony mess against his ribcage.

#14 – Music  
When she finally came, she wasn't the thrashing storm he'd expected, no brash and tuneless junior version of Molly that Remus could have cast aside with barely a flick of his wand; no, she was blonde and elegant as a finely-tuned violin, everything that Molly would despise, and _that's_ when Remus knew he would be no match for her in Bill's heart.

#49 – Lock  
When Remus moved in with Sirius after that, he told himself it was to help the Order, to fight the good fight and all of that, but behind locked doors, when he let himself think of it, he knew it was because he couldn't bear to live alone anymore, not in the place where Bill used to sleep.

#16 – Cover  
Only Bill wouldn't stay gone, not that he ever really had, and Remus found himself playing _the other man_, the shameful secret Bill would come to in the dead of night when his girlfriend closed her legs against him, and it wasn't what he wanted or needed, but it was all that he could get, so he swallowed his pride and took it.  
**  
**#40 – Whisper  
It didn't take long for the gossip mill to get wind of them, and Remus heard the disapproval in Molly's voice when she offered him tea, felt the judgement in Sirius's stare when he mumbled goodnight, saw Moody's eye roll behind his back when he gave out assignments, and try as he might, he couldn't pretend it didn't matter.

#42 – Talk  
"It won't end well, I'm afraid, not with a man who won't admit what he wants," Dumbledore said to Remus quietly one night, squeezing his shoulder as he made to leave the parlour at Grimmauld Place, and the way sad blue eyes rested on him, Remus couldn't help but wonder if the old man didn't know _exactly_ what he was talking about.

#01 – Ring  
There should have been a word for the thing that happened to his chest when Bill caught him eyeing the band of gold around her finger at the Burrow one night and whispered, "Come on, had to end sometime, yeah?"

#46 – Gravity  
That time it really did end – it _really _did – and Remus took the only path he could: he gave Dumbledore a swift nod, packed his bags, and set up camp in the forest with Greyback's wolves, a reality check of outlandish proportions, as it turned out, because sitting around and pining over a love that would never be was not really conducive to winning this fucking war, and as soon as he saw the state of things for his brethren, he knew the war had to be his first priority.

#13 – View  
That year with the werewolves brought clarity, calm of a sort, even in the midst of all the chaos, and Remus found he could see things properly again: the way he had a duty to fight for the rights and freedoms of people like him, and everyone else that Voldemort had hurt, and if Bill just wasn't one of those people, then there wasn't any point in fighting for him.

#24 – Strength  
The hospital room closed in on him quickly, thrumming with blood and trauma as Weasleys ran back and forth and French women sobbed in his ear, but Remus heard none of that; he only heard the sound of Greyback's teeth on Bill's flesh, and the sound of his own voice screaming, over and over again in his mind.

#35 – Fever  
They wouldn't let him stay with Bill for the first full moon after the attack – _too dangerous; anything could happen; what if Bill doesn't change?_ – but Remus knocked on the door of the Burrow at five a.m. the next morning, sore and crumpled and barely able to walk by himself, but seeing Bill, pale but unharmed under a pile of blankets on the sofa, smiling weakly at him and resting a hand on his forehead, made it all worthwhile.

#29 – Dance  
The wedding invitation sat untouched on his desk for weeks, the crisp white edges and faux-lace gild daring him to come to a celebration he couldn't endorse, insisting he dance to music he couldn't hear.

#38 – Forever  
"Do you, Remus John Lupin, take this woman to be your wife, to love her in sickness and in health, to provide for her and…" _do a hell of a lot of things he could not, in fact, promise to do for her_, Remus thought to himself as the wizard rambled on, and it wasn't fair to do this to Tonks, but all he could think about was the way his entire body had seized up in anger every time he saw Bill with his own fiancée, and Remus could not fucking _wait_ to see the bastard's face when he found out Remus had beaten him to the altar.

#43 – Search  
"We've got to recover Mad-Eye's body," said Remus firmly, his jaw working to grind his teeth together without even realising it, and when Bill glanced over at him and offered to come along, arms crossed over his chest and chin raised in challenge, it suddenly wasn't the task at hand that would require every bit of fortitude Remus retained, but something else entirely.

#34 – Formal  
They behaved like strangers that night, as though they'd barely ever spoken a civil word to each other, and the formality of the conversation drove through Remus's gut like a stake, so much that he found himself staring at the back of Bill's head every time the other man stormed in front, casting locator spells and swearing under his breath, wondering if this was as hard on Bill as it was on Remus.

#45 – Eclipse  
Remus was certain the sun didn't rise that morning and the moon didn't set that night; he was certain that time stood still the moment Bill walked through his door again, flushed and angry and pushing Remus back against the kitchen counter with a muttered phrase of regret that didn't match what his mouth was doing.

#31 – Sacred  
_We're married_, Remus didn't say, couldn't say, but the words ran through his mind like a sick marquee, highlighted and scrolling and flashing in neon red, but Bill's body against his felt more right than his wife's, and the way Bill murmured his name in the shadows of the night dissolved any vows Remus thought he'd made to someone else.

#44 – Hope  
It couldn't last, obviously, and Remus was a fool to get his hopes up, but he just couldn't smother the lightness in his chest every time Bill knocked quietly on the door, running his hand over his face and begging Remus to let him in – just once more, he always said, _just once more_.

#39 – Overwhelmed  
There was never supposed to be a _baby_, for God's sake, not for him, but there was, and it was coming sooner than he'd like to admit; Tonks's belly expanded with every passing day, and all Remus could do was blink at her, lost and confused and barely comprehending that _he_ could have caused this, that _he_ could have made such a colossal mistake.

#18 – Dream  
There were no perfect worlds, not even in Remus's dreams, but occasionally on the mornings after a full moon, when his mind was thick with sleep and his consciousness was fogged beyond rationality, he let himself imagine a world without doubt or fear or excuses, a world in which a person needed only to conjure their most desperate wish in their mind, and it would be so.

#09 – Red  
"You really do like it, don't you?" asked Bill with a laugh, taking a drag off his cigarette and blowing the smoke up to the ceiling as Remus grinned and continued to weave his hands through Bill's hair, spread out over the pillow like a pool of fire.

#19 – Candle  
"I thought I loved her," murmured Bill one night, his face framed by the low glow of the candles and his eyes dark with worry, and Remus dragged a finger over Bill's chest and filled in the rest for himself: _She's beautiful, a Veela, and I'd be mad to turn her away_.

#26 – Ice  
The night Fleur arrived at the door and knocked three times – cool, crisp knocks, full of anger and accusation – Tonks furrowed her brow and glanced at Remus for only a second before turning back to her book, leaving the door unopened and Fleur's shrieking demands unheeded.

#25 – Mask  
"I can explain," began Remus, pacing the living room floor, but she only slammed her book shut and put up a hand, silently telling him that his need to explain was not nearly as important as her need to stop him, and with one look at her stony face as she waddled upstairs, he made his decision.

#47 – Highway  
He respected her enough, but the decision wasn't for her; it was for Teddy, still unborn and forming both in Tonks's body and in Remus's mind, and the crux of it was: did he want to be the father whose name his son would scorn for running away, or the father who would get to look into his son's eyes and know that they were _his_, always, and that no one could ever take that away from him?

#04 – Box  
_Box it up_, he told himself the night Bill left for good, the night Remus told him that there was a baby coming and he could never, ever come back, but words were always easier than actions, at least for something like that, and the image in his head of a neat, square, wooden crate of anger and desire kept collapsing into a messy heap of splinters and frayed rope.

#36 – Laugh  
The night Teddy was born, Remus could think of only one place he wanted to be and one person he wanted to tell, and when he arrived at Shell Cottage with three glasses of whisky already warming his belly, it was to hearty slaps on the back, and more raised glasses, and the glimpse of Bill's lined face smiling at him and Bill's warm voice wishing him well.

#50 – Breathe  
It would have been nice to say he went into the final battle thinking of his wife and son, but no, life was never _nice_ to him, not like that, at least, and so he went into the final battle thinking of the arch of Bill's back underneath him, and the line of Bill's hip against him, and the scent of Bill's hair in his fists, and even though it seemed like only sex and he tried to tell himself it had never been anything more, it wasn't quite the right night to be telling lies, even to himself.

#05 – Run  
He hadn't the strength or the energy, not anymore, not when putting one foot in front of the other sent a sharp pain to his gut and blurred his vision, and that's when he knew it was time to stop pretending, time to stop trying to be someone he wasn't, and time to stop running.

* * *

#02 – Hero  
There were too many dead to give them all proper burials, but after the family had gathered for Fred, after the Ministry had taken a minute of silence for all of the fallen, after the others had "moved on," doing their best to forget the losses, Bill made his way to central London and a small, nondescript park that Remus had shown him once, and he stood for a long time, hair loose around his shoulders to hide his face from the world, and seized by regret and loss and anger and tears that wouldn't come, he gazed down at the grass, remembered the feel of rough fingertips on his skin and greying stubble against his neck and jaw, and for that afternoon only, before he boxed it all up again, he let himself mourn.

 

-fin-


End file.
